Tag: Route Two Soccer

Route Two Soccer – Portland and Orlando Fight Out an Interesting 0-0 Draw

Posted on by RJ Allen

Portland showed how to defend against Orlando, without doing much to threaten on the other end

The Orlando Pride entered Saturday’s match against Portland on an offensive tear, winning five of their previous six games and scoring 17 goals in the process. But that high-flying attack ground to a halt against the Thorns and raised some questions about whether Orlando might be a bit of a ‘flat-track bully’ – beating up on their weaker opposition but struggling to break down tougher teams.

After all, Orlando’s five-game winning streak came against the teams currently ranked 10th, 6th, 9th, 7th, and 9th in the table. Meanwhile, against the other playoff teams, they’ve only managed a single win – and scored just six goals – in seven games.

Of course, this narrative may only be as strong as the current week’s results. And they could easily turn the tide next week. But there are some reasons to think that Orlando is uniquely likely to devastate weaker teams while struggling against more organized opposition. And the signs were all in clear evidence against Portland.

Orlando attack with lethal quickness

The hallmark of the Orlando attack is the speed of their assaults. The ball pings back and forth in the backline, while they wait for a chance to open. And when it does, they pounce. Marta is the orchestrator, finding pockets of space to receive the ball and quickly pass it along. Morgan is the tip of the spear driven through the opposition’s backline when she can rush onto the ball and bury her chances in the back of the net. And the supporting cast has done excellent work to facilitate this process. Camila has come into her own as a driving attacker. Ubogagu has finally found a role that allows her skill on the ball and quick touches to flourish. Weatherholt and Kennedy have done strong work as the water carriers who keep things afloat while the attacking four get themselves into position to spring an attack.

They have made a wonderful show of it over the past several months and done more than enough to earn their spot in the playoffs. But they, as yet, haven’t really shown that there’s much of a Plan B here.

Writing about Orlando back in May, I argued that they had turned a corner and looked ready to make a run up the table (for once, I got one right!). But I also noted that this progress was more a function of doubling down on a strength than it was about having solved their weaknesses. Put simply: Orlando doesn’t have much of a midfield.

Now, they’ve excelled in spite of that fact by moving the ball with lightning pace out of the back: sending balls over the top, or relying on Marta and Camila to pick out through-balls for the strikers to run onto. They are explosive in the attack, and it can simply be overwhelming if you lack team speed, or if your defensive unit is even slightly ragged. Leave five extra feet of space between the center backs and Morgan will slip right through and score before you have a chance to realize your mistake.

However, without a more diverse range of attacking options, you run the risk of good teams counteracting your strengths. And that’s exactly what we saw happen on Saturday.

Orlando needs space to run into; Deny them that space and the goals will dry up

Portland appear to have come into the match with a clear, and fairly simple, game plan: defend compactly and starve Orlando of the space they need to thrive.

That’s not an easy task. It depends on a comprehensive performance by the entire defensive unit. Defending deep can limit the danger from through-balls, but it also puts your back against the wall. One mistake in defensive positioning, one missed tackle, one poor clearance, and you could find yourself down a goal. But if the team is well drilled and the individual performers are up to the task, it can be stultifying.

In the center, Sonnett and Menges put on a clinic, consistently stepping up to clear away crosses and long balls up the middle. On the wings, Klingenberg and Reynolds worked hard to close down on wide attacks, not giving them time to pick out a pass, and ushering them into less dangerous positions.

Their midfield setup was also designed to facilitate this work. Portland is often quite fluid tactically, shifting freely from 4-3-3 to 4-5-1 to 5-4-1 and even stopping in a traditional old 4-4-2 in the middle sometimes. They shifted a bit less this week, with Sykes occasionally dropping back as an auxiliary fullback on the right, allowing them to set up a seven-woman backfield, as the back five combined with Long and Horan in the middle. The idea of dropping back is to put quick pressure on Orlando anytime they advance into the final third; not necessarily to win the ball but simply to disrupt and frustrate the Pride’s attack. Close down their passing lanes and you force them to either retreat or play a low percentage pass.

It’s a setup that demands a lot of the central midfielders, and to the extent that there was a problem, this is where it manifested. Allie Long has never really been a true holding mid, and some of the reasons for that were all-too-apparent here. She is a pretty good ball-winner but isn’t really a ‘holding’ midfielder, in the sense of managing space and providing a defensive shield. She overcommits to challenges, which is dangerous if she misses and lets the opponent behind her. But it’s even more dangerous when she connects. She drew one yellow and easily could have had two more. It’s the NWSL, where most refs operate on the principle ‘if the leg isn’t broken it wasn’t a booking,’ but even so, she was living on the edge. It was no surprise, therefore, that Parsons made a switch relatively early, bringing on Amandine Henry for Long in the 60th minute. The difference was immediate and noticeable. Presumably, Henry was being given a rest after a cross-continental flight to play for France. But if Portland and Orlando meet again, one would expect her to play the full 90 and bring a bit more calm and coherence to the role.

The final piece of the puzzle is physicality. As I have often noted, the NWSL is notable for the amount of rough play that goes uncalled. And Portland certainly counted on that. They aren’t an especially physical team, but they did their best to act like one in this game. With a pliant referee, they were able to get pretty stuck in and make things exceptionally difficult for Orlando. Morgan, in particular, seemed to get increasingly (and understandably) frustrated with the physical play, which disrupted her touch and movement.

All in all, it was a nice bit of tactical suppression. Coach Mark Parsons deserves credit for identifying Orlando’s weakness and moving to exploit it. And his players deserve a lot of credit for executing the plan well. The center backs and Franch in goal deserve special plaudits for their quick reactions and careful attention to the Pride strikers.

And this has been a theme all year for Portland, who have secured a home playoff berth primarily on their ability to kill off games and frustrate the opposition. That’s certainly not what I expected going into the season, but it’s been interesting watching them adapt and manage games in this way.

Orlando needs a Plan B

The Pride have some devastating offensive pieces, but it’s possible that they aren’t quite the unstoppable force they seemed to be a couple weeks ago. This is a team built primarily around movement off the ball and use of open space. Deny them that space and they look far more human.

Portland, despite a lot of physical proximity to the goal, without the space in which to move quickly, they found little joy, often resorting to shots from distance or poor angles. All in all, they managed to get off 14 shots, but only two that were on target.

The problem is that they simply don’t have the resources to build attacks through intricate passing in tight spaces. Marta is, of course, one of the all-time greats under those conditions, and Ubogagu has her moments. But there isn’t much else. And with a limited set of options, the defense can over-commit to shepherding those players away from dangerous positions. As the saying goes: “you can’t stop Marta; you can only hope to contain her.” But without additional outlets to build intricate triangles around the defense, ‘containment’ will often be enough to get the job done.

We’ve seen a couple modest efforts at unlocking this problem, none of which have been developed fully enough to really work. First, you can push wide and send in crosses. The problem here is that Orlando isn’t particularly good in the air, and Portland (really) is. Second, you can shoot from distance and force them to come out to close you down. But this is problematic too because Orlando doesn’t have much in the way of good long shots, with Camila being the major exception. Third, you can turn defense into offense, pressing aggressively in your opponent’s half. Win the ball there, and you’ll have precisely the space that you were looking for.

This final approach was the most successful. For the opening 20-25 minutes, Orlando was pressing high and making things very difficult for Portland. This has been a consistent problem for the Thorns all season. It’s not entirely clear why they are still so listless playing out from the back, but it’s certainly an opportunity to be exploited. However, that sort of high press is exhausting, particularly in the Orlando afternoon sun. And it’s also dangerous. Orlando has made a lot of progress defensively from the early season problems, but that’s largely due to solidifying the shield in front of the backline. Press high and you risk opening up gaps there. Give a player like Sinclair space to operate, and you risk being hoist on your own petard. A quick outlet to Raso or Nadim could turn a broken press into a goal conceded in mere seconds.

Orlando have a very good team and will be very interesting to watch in the playoffs. But if they want to win the title, they would do well to think about how they will pierce this sort of deep defensive wall. After all, the three teams left for them to think about are far stronger defensively than the opponents they have been battering in recent weeks. A viable Plan B would go a long way toward making their dreams of winning a championship become reality.

Route Two Soccer – How Will Chicago Use Morgan Brian?

Posted on by RJ Allen

[media-credit name=”Kelley Piper” align=”aligncenter” width=”300″][/media-credit]

When news arrived that Houston had traded Morgan Brian to Chicago, it immediately inspired speculation about the motivations for the deal. Was Brian the rumored national teamer that might be headed to Lyon? Was this simply Houston’s effort to get something out of the player before she departed for foreign shores? If so, and given her lingering health issues, would she even play for Chicago? But we’ve now heard that Brian plans to stay in the States and that she’s ready to suit up this weekend.

So, while there is certainly some interesting reporting to be done about how this all went down, this is a tactics column, and we’re going to jump right over the ‘how did we get here’ part and take a look at how Brian might be used now that she’s joined the Red Stars.

The most likely scenario: a 4-4-2 diamond

Early in this season, there were some rumblings that Chicago wanted to work on their tactical flexibility. And in the first few games, we even saw glimpses of it. But as the season has progressed, they have settled quite firmly back into coach Rory Dames’ preferred approach: the 4-4-2 diamond. This setup looks to back the center of the pitch, relying mostly on fullbacks for depth. It’s generally very compact, and while Chicago has shown flashes of higher-level ball control, they often seem less concerned with holding possession and more interested in quick, direct attacks.

In its most successful iteration, the diamond has featured Ertz in the holding role, with Colaprico on the left, DiBernardo in the 10, and Huerta on the right. And the arrival of Yuki Nagasoto seemed like it could be the final piece of the puzzle—giving them another player with elite technical skills to pair with Press.

However, in recent weeks some of the luster has come off this basic setup. Despite a wealth of quality midfielders, they’ve had a difficult time producing much; generating tons of opportunities, but very few good ones. Meanwhile, the forwards have drifted further and further back, hoping to revitalize the attack, but taking themselves further out of scoring range in the process. It’s all been a bit stagnant.

It also hasn’t helped that the injury bug has bit a few times—forcing some reallocations between the backline and midfield, and some last minute substitutions.

So … if we assume that Dames is likely to stick with his preferred setup, the question is where Brian will fit into the mix. And it’s actually a difficult question to answer, given the impressive versatility of many of these players. If DiBernardo has to miss another week, Brian could easily replace her in the attacking midfield role. If Ertz is needed at center back, Brian could easily take over the holding role. And while no one would mistake Brian for a winger, the whole point of the diamond is to allow the ‘wide’ midfielders to pinch in. Just as Colaprico has thrived on the left this year, Brian could easily take over the right.

But, if we assume a full strength side in Chicago’s traditional diamond, this is probably the most likely deployment of resources. While Ertz has been excellent in the midfield, it was a luxury that depended on strong performances from Naughton and Johnson in the back. As they’ve begun to falter, the arrival of Brian might be the trigger to move Ertz back.

Ultimately, it’s a question of what Dames believes the team’s main problem to be. Because there are plenty of minor variants available here, all of which are slightly better or worse in small ways. Brian and Colaprico could swap, as could Huerta and Nagasoto. Alternatively, Brian could take over the attacking midfield role, pushing DiBernardo to the right (where she played much of last year), with Ertz staying at the bottom of the diamond.

The problem with all these approaches, however, is that they don’t really resolve the underlying problems. Now, that may not be necessary. After all, Chicago were flying high a month ago using this system, so maybe simply adding another elite player into the mix will be enough to achieve a reset. But if Dames sees the rot as going a bit deeper, Brian’s arrival opens up a broad new realm of tactical possibilities.

Pushing the attack higher with a back three

With Brian now joining the team, Chicago probably has the strongest midfield of any team in the league, with a wealth of top-level talent, who all excel on both sides of the ball. Dani Colaprico is one of the best holding midfielders in the US pool but is arguably only the third best of this group.

The ‘problem’ is that for all their depth here, Chicago simply doesn’t have much width. With a back four, that’s addressed by asking the fullbacks to run like crazy. But that’s been hit or miss and creates serious exposure risks at the back. A back three resolves this problem by pressing the fullbacks up to become wingbacks and allowing the central trio free reign to control play through the middle.

This is one possible setup, which deploys Huerta as a wingback. It’s a bit risky, but Huerta is potentially interesting in that role, and it gives Chicago a much firmer grip over the midfield. An alternative would be to swap Gilliland in for Huerta, which offers a bit more defensive solidity but a bit less attacking flair.

But the heart of this approach is the space it creates for Brian, Colaprico, and DiBernardo to operate freely in the central midfield. Bringing Brian into the mix, in particular, is a huge upgrade given her comfort and vision with the ball in tight spaces. She isn’t quite the wrecking ball defensively that Ertz has been—though she is shockingly good at occupying space and managing play—but she makes up for it with smoothness in possession and the ability to organize play through the middle.

Tactical fluidity

There are obviously pluses and minuses to every approach, and the back three is no different. But it offers a lot of advantages to a team overloaded with talented central players who need a bit more support from the wings. And it also offers a lot to a team with several world class attackers, which nevertheless has consistently struggled (for several years now) to actually find the back of the net.

So, there is a real case for making a change here. But, as with all tactical conversations, it’s important not to overstate the differences. While the back three might seem like a major shift, it’s actually not that far away from the 4-4-2 diamond discussed above. In effect, the back three pushes Ertz back from her holding role, while pushing two fullbacks up into the midfield. The result is a much wider attacking line, which prevents opponents from collapsing into the center to suffocate the passing game. It is an approach that can be exposed by speed on the wings, but the extra body in the backline does a lot to limit the damage here.

Indeed, one of the big advantages of exploring your tactical options is the ability it gives you to shift things mid-game to exploit opportunities as they arise. And here, the versatility of the Chicago players becomes absolutely deadly.

With the right players, a 3-4-1-2 can switch fairly seamlessly into an aggressive, attacking 4-3-3. All you have to do is drop Short into the backline and push Huerta forward into the front.

Alternatively, you can capitalize on the wealth of talent in the holding midfield role by loading up the central midfield and shifting to a 4-2-3-1.

The key point here is simply: Chicago has options. It remains to be seen how many of those options they employ, and some may work out better than others. But at a bare minimum, they ought to at least be exploring the possibilities.

How far can the diamond take them?

In the end, Dames doesn’t seem likely to make any major tactical moves, at least not in the short term. But he should seriously consider it. Chicago has been very good for three years now but has consistently stumbled once everything was on the line. That may be nerves, bad luck, or just happenstance. But it also likely has something to do with their stagnant style of play. The diamond is a solid setup and can be very successful on its day. But it’s very constrained and doesn’t give your star players many chances to seize the game by the reins and do something special.

With the additions of Brian and Nagasoto, Chicago is now bursting at the seams with top level attacking talent, and they have a rock solid support system to give those players a chance to impose themselves. The diamond has served them well, but it’s time to unfurl the sails a bit and see what else they can do.

Route Two Soccer – Handicapping the Playoff Run-in

Posted on by RJ Allen

The NWSL season is entering its squeaky-bum period, with five weeks to go and very little settled. North Carolina are as close to a lock as you can get at this point, with a five point lead over second place and a game in hand (against last place Washington) to boot. But outside of the Courage, the table is full of questions.

So let’s take a run through the teams still in the playoff hunt, and assess their chances for making the postseason.

Portland Thorns (34 points, GD +9)

  • Seattle Reign (away)
  • Washington Spirit (home)
  • Boston Breakers (away)
  • Orlando Pride (away)
  • Chicago Red Stars (home)

Portland have finally hit a decent vein of form. It’s taken a lot longer than expected, and their recent loss against Kansas City shows that there are still some gaps here. But the Thorns of late have looked much closer to the dominant possession-based team that we all expected. This team has a lot of attacking talent but has struggled to get everyone working together. In recent weeks Sinclair has been the fulcrum around which everyone has moved, and things have looked much better. It still remains to be seen if those improvements can be preserved as the squad returns to full strength.

With a seven point cushion on fifth place, they are close to a lock to make the playoffs. The real question is whether they can hold off Orlando and Chicago to secure a home match in the semifinals. And there’s still an outside chance that they could catch North Carolina for first place. But realistically, the final month is more about settling in for the playoffs than anything else.

Chicago Red Stars (29 points, GD +2)

  • Washington Spirit (away)
  • NC Courage (home)
  • FCKC (away)
  • Houston Dash (away)
  • Portland Thorns (away)

It seems like just a few weeks ago that Chicago were riding high—even briefly sneaking into first place. The offense was starting to click and the defense was solid. Since then, coach Rory Dames has tinkered a bit and found absolutely nothing working. The past three weeks have seen them lose three consecutive home matches, looking worse and worse each game. Some of it has been injuries. Despite a generally great bill of health on the season, they’ve picked up a few nagging injuries recently and have had trouble sorting things out. But ultimately, the Red Stars’ recent struggles are a bit part to sort out.

The talent is obviously still here, and you probably wouldn’t go wrong expecting some mean reversion. But the slide has been worrisome, turning what looked to be an easy playoff coronation into a genuine fight. They’re now tied with surging Orlando, only two points ahead of Seattle. With four away games out of their five remaining fixtures, Chicago is in a precarious position, and will need some good results soon to right the ship. They’re not yet in crisis, but anything less than three points this weekend against Washington and things really will start to get dangerous.

Tiebreakers: Chicago would win a tiebreaker against Orlando (which is why they’re currently in 3rd despite equal points and a worse goal difference) and Sky Blue, but would lose against Seattle.

Orlando Pride (29 points, GD +10)

  • FCKC (away)
  • Boston Breakers (home)
  • Seattle Reign (home)
  • Portland Thorns (home)
  • NC Courage (away)

It took them awhile, but Orlando have finally hit their stride, scoring 10 goals in their past three games while only conceding one, on their way to a fairly easy nine points. The return of Alex Morgan has been everything that Pride fans hoped it would be. She’s provided that clinical finishing and intelligent movement that was so missing in the early season, and given Marta more freedom to play a flexible role. Orlando still doesn’t really have much of a midfield, but coach Tom Sermanni has done an excellent job of finding ways around that problem. It also helps that a number of players have excelled in new roles this season. The ability to move players like Kennedy, Edmonds, and Camila in and out of the midfield has given Sermanni a great deal of tactical flexibility—allowing him to structure the team to best facilitate his world-class attackers given what opponent and game situation demand.

At this point, the big question is whether Orlando’s form is the new normal, or if this is just high tide from which things will inevitably recede a bit. The way the Pride have been playing, it’s getting harder to see them not taking a playoff spot, but there are still some reasons for caution. They have looked great, certainly, but these three big performances came against Washington, Sky Blue, and Boston—three of the weakest teams in the league. And we’re still not that far removed from them getting comprehensively outplayed by Chicago last month.

The Pride have two more ‘easy’ games coming up—though anyone who’s watched KC recently might question that designation, before they close out the year with matches against playoff contenders. If they can earn four or six points from these next two weekends, that will put them in good position. But if they slip up against KC or Boston, they could very easily find that final playoff spot slipping just out of their grasp.

Tiebreakers: Orland would win a tiebreaker against Sky Blue and lose against Chicago. They’re currently tied with Seattle, so that game will be even more important than it would normally – a ‘seven pointer’ rather than a ‘six pointer.’

Seattle Reign (27 points, GD +6)

  • Portland Thorns (home)
  • Houston Dash (away)
  • Orlando Pride (away)
  • FCKC (home)
  • Washington Spirit (away)

Oh, Seattle. You could be 3rd in the table right now, in poll position to reach the playoffs. But you fell victim to one of the classic blunders: never go in against Sam Kerr when death is on the line. So instead you’re in fifth place, needing to make up some ground, with time running out and Megan Rapinoe still unavailable.

Still, things aren’t all grim for Seattle. Even without Rapinoe, they’ve been playing well, with the players settling into the team’s new rhythm—lots of movement, lots of dangerous runs, and one intense Welsh dragon keeping it all together in the middle. Beyond that, they have a reasonably friendly run-in. This weekend’s match against Portland will be tough, certainly, but after that they’ve got some slightly less threatening matches. And while they do need to play Orlando, that is also a huge opportunity to take points from one of their main competitors. That game is actually even more important than it seems, because Seattle and Orlando are currently tied in head-to-head, which means if Seattle can win it will effectively a ‘seven pointer’ rather than just a ‘six pointer,’ since it will give them the points as well as the advantage in the tiebreaker. All of which means Seattle’s season is still very much in their own hands. It’s just a matter of executing. And staying away from any Australians.

Tiebreakers: Seattle would win a tiebreaker against Chicago. They’re tied in head to head against Sky Blue, so it would revert to goal difference, where Seattle is way ahead. The tiebreaker with Orlando is still up in the air.

Sky Blue (26 points, GD -7)

  • Boston Breakers (home)
  • FCKC (away)
  • Washington Spirit (home)
  • NC Courage (home)
  • Boston Breakers (away)

Halfway through their match on Saturday night, Sky Blue’s season was effectively over. Then, they executed an astonishing comeback to earn the three points and resuscitate their chances. It’s still a difficult lift, given their defensive frailty and other issues. I wrote about Sky Blue at length last week so won’t belabor the point much here. This team really has no business making the playoffs, but they’re only three points out, and you would have to be nuts to bet against Sam Kerr right now. Beyond that, they have (by a pretty big margin) the easiest run-in of the teams in the playoff hunt, with three home matches, two games against Boston, another against Washington, and one against KC. There are no gimme games in this league, and all of those teams could easily beat Sky Blue. But the opportunity is there, if they can hold it together and seize it.

Tiebreakers: Sky Blue would lose the tiebreaker against all the teams. Technically they’re tied with Seattle in head-to-head games, but there’s no chance of them recovering from the gap in goal difference.

Still alive with a hope and a prayer: FCKC and Houston

FC Kansas City and Houston are both sitting on 23 points, which puts them six points out of a playoff spot. With only 15 points left on the table, it’s very hard to see either doing enough to make up that difference (and leapfrog) all the teams in between. But it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility. KC, in particular, seems to have finally settled in a bit (three straight wins, including results over Portland and Chicago), and their run-in is basically all against the other teams in the playoff hunt—and four of those games are at home, too. Pick up 12 points from those games and they really could make it.

I certainly wouldn’t be on it, but there’s plenty of quality in both of these teams. So it’s certainly worth keeping an eye on them.

Predicting the final table

With everything so close, it’s hard to draw clear distinctions. But for the sake of argument, I’ll make a guess. Accounting for quality, form, and schedule, I see the final results shaking out as follows:

  1. North Carolina
  2. Portland
  3. Orlando
  4. Chicago
  5. Sky Blue
  6. Seattle
  7. FCKC
  8. Houston
  9. Boston
  10. Washington

Agree? Disagree? Let us know your predicted final table in the comments.

Route Two Soccer – What Went Wrong with Sky Blue?

Posted on by RJ Allen

[media-credit name=”Kelley Piper” align=”alignnone” width=”300″][/media-credit]

It’s been a strange season for Sky Blue FC. They got off to a strong start, and spent most of the first half looking like serious playoff challengers. That came as a surprise to those who had judged them too young, too inexperienced, and too raw to make a serious push this year. And some of us continued to hold to that position well into the season. In mid-June, for example, I wrote a buy/sell/hold column and recommending selling on Sky Blue.

Immediately after that column, Sam Kerr went full superhero and the team reeled off a run of very impressive results. And while there were still obvious flaws in the squad, it wasn’t hard to see them doing enough to compensate for those problems. There was even a clear analogue between the Sky Blue of 2017 and the Western New York Flash of 2016—who also looked to be a few pieces away from the full puzzle but were able to hang onto the 4th playoff spot anyways.

But starting in the middle of July, the wheels started to come off, and the team is now in full crisis mode, having conceded 14 goals in their past three games (by comparison, North Carolina have conceded 14 goals over the whole season). Now, with the news dropping on Wednesday afternoon that head coach Christy Holly is stepping down from the job, it might be a useful time to reflect on how things got so bad.

However, before we get into the thick of it, it’s worth noting that Sky Blue are not out of the playoff race. It’s possible that was part of the motivation for Holly to make this move right now. Whether the fault rested with him (arguable, but by no means obvious), sometimes a change at the top can be useful to reset the system. And as long as they have Kerr terrorizing opposing defenses, there’s a shot. So it will certainly be interesting to watch the end of the season. They’re unlikely to fix everything that’s ailing them, but even some modest improvements might be enough. There are three key areas of concern.

Goalkeeping: Sheridan has been great, but needs a break

Kailen Sheridan has put together an extremely impressive rookie campaign. Confident, athletic, and decisive – she was one of the best keepers in the league through most of the season. But things have taken a turn for the worse, starting with the epic 5-4 match against Seattle. Sheridan took a number of hits that game and collapsed on the field at the final whistle. And the injuries have only continued to pile up. While she hasn’t missed any minutes, her range of motion is clearly suffering, and she has looked far more tentative over the past few games.

The best long-term approach would be to sit the young keeper for a few weeks to let her build back to 100%. It’s understandable that both Sheridan and the team are resistant – and it’s certainly possible that even at 70% Sheridan is the best option. But it’s far from an ideal situation.

Defense: Age, inexperience, and injuries

The defensive line is clearly the heart of the problem, and it was clearly a foreseeable problem as well. Their first choice back five at the start of the season featured four players 22-or-under and one player over 40. But it was hard to anticipate things collapsing quite this completely.

Relatively early in the season, Kelley O’Hara was brought back into the backline, which did make a huge difference. So her recent absence to injury has been a big loss. Without her movement and attacking quality in that fluid right wingback/fullback hybrid role, they’ve been far easier to pin back and much less stable.

Meanwhile, the other veteran on the backline has held off the march of time far longer than anyone could ever have expected. But time eventually defeats us all. And sadly, 2017 seems to be the year that age finally began to catch up with Christie Pearce. She started the season strong, playing as well in the first few months as we’ve seen from her in a long time. But since then, things have started to slip. The pace is still good, but it’s not quite as explosive. Her tackling is less precise. And while you’d be hard pressed to find a player with higher soccer intelligence, Pearce has finally started to look like a player whose body no longer is able to do what her brain needs it to do.

The youth movement has also hit some speed bumps. Sky Blue were lauded for their excellent draft—particularly for getting the duo of Mandy Freeman and Kayla Mills—and early in the season there were some positive returns. Freeman missed six weeks with injury, and even when healthy has suffered from all the expected problems that come with youth. The talent is clearly there, and she will be a rock in their defense for a long time, but she has not been the reliable presence that they’ve needed. Mills has almost limitless potential, but so far has been unable to translate that talent into consistent match performances. They’ve gotten some solid performances from Erica Skroski, but even she has been less dependable than she was last year—perhaps due to constantly being slotted into new positions with new obligations as much as anything else.

It should come as no surprise that young players would stumble, or that they would fade as the season progressed. The professional game is tougher and longer than their other experiences. It would have been surprising if they hadn’t faded a bit. That’s simply one of the dangers of building on youth. And all things considered, blooding young players, and hoping that they might be able to get you through the season probably wasn’t a terrible gamble. If they manage it, you hit the peak of your success cycle earlier than expected. If not … well, this wasn’t supposed to be a playoff team anyways. But with more experience, they might be ready to truly compete by 2018.

And that’s still a possibility. But it’s hard to look at the past few weeks and see a team building toward the future. With makeshift defenders filling in and struggling mightily to cope with expectations, Sky Blue has looked much more like a team on a downward slope than the reverse.

20/20 is perfect, of course, but it’s hard to look at the team right now and not think that they missed a chance to pick up a veteran defender at some point who could help plug some of these gaps. As it is, they’ve got the group that they’ve got. And it’s an open question whether they’ll be able to sort things out enough to at least close down the spigot of goals.

Midfield: Not enough ball-winning, not enough creativity

Team defensive breakdowns are rarely just the fault of the defense. And that’s certainly the case with Sky Blue this year. While the midfield unit is reasonably solid on paper, at times they’ve looked to be a bit less than the sum of their parts.

Look at the roster and you’ll see creative players, players with pace, players who can dribble, players who can shoot. But they’ve had a very difficult time finding an appropriate balance. And a lot of that has to do with the pairing in the middle: Sarah Killion and Raquel Rodriguez. When they’re both clicking, that can be a very successful combination. They’re similar players—all-around talents who can do a defensive job, hold possession, and make attacking runs. But when things aren’t working, it can break down pretty badly. They both tend to play narrow, and neither has the sort of defensive solidity that you’d want from a lock-down holding midfielder. As a result, Sky Blue haven’t really been able to close down the opposition in the midfield with a good ball-winner, nor have they been able to consistently hold possession once they do get the ball.

Combine those two with a rotating cast of often-good-but-inconsistent players like Nikki Stanton, Daphne Corboz, Taylor Lytle, and Madison Tiernan and the result is precisely what you’d expect: a team that can beat anyone on their day but that struggles to maintain much coherence from week to week.

There is a lot of talent here, and during the first part of the season, the mixing-and-matching worked out well enough. But one of the major themes of the past month has been the consistent breakdown of the midfield. Players have rotated in and out and there hasn’t been much coherence in the process.  Despite the presence of some players with a lot of creative potential (Corboz in particular), they simply haven’t been able to build the structure necessary to let that creativity flourish.

Who is to blame? And where do they go from here?

Under conditions like these, you certainly want to put some of the blame on the coach—whose job it is to develop a system into which players can fit without needing to reinvent the wheel each game. And whose responsibility it was to build a roster that could last over the long haul.

But it’s also important to remember the baseline that this team was working from: “young, developing, probably not ready yet.” So it’s important not to overstate the problems here.

Sky Blue overachieved at the start of the season, and that may have created some rising expectations. But all things considered, they’re right about where they ‘should’ be at the moment. Considering the serious injuries they’ve sustained, I would still rate their performance over the whole season as a modest coaching success.

It’s possible that Holly felt like he had taken the team as far as they could go under him, and he wanted to give them a chance to make the final playoff push with someone else. Perhaps the recent problems generated tension that made his position unsustainable. Perhaps there are other reasons that have little or nothing to do with the performance on the pitch.

But whatever the motivations for the change this week, taking a broad perspective and thinking about his full tenure on the job, there is plenty for Holly to be proud of. Whether or not Sky Blue is able to arrest their decline and make the playoffs this year, they are on far more stable ground than they were when he took on the job.

Route Two Soccer – Players Out of Position

Posted on by RJ Allen

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How many players have natural positions? How flexible are those roles? In what circumstances does it make sense to play someone ‘out of position’? These are questions that most soccer fans will find themselves asking sooner or later, particularly if they follow teams coached by habitual tinkerers.

There are few better examples than Jill Ellis, head coach of the US Women’s National Team, who has spent the past few years persistently trying to fit players into new roles. Christen Press has found it difficult to get time as a central striker, where she performs best, but earned plenty of minutes on the wings. Crystal Dunn has gone from fullback to center forward to Number 10 to winger. Allie Long was used as a center back. Kelley O’Hara deployed as a fullback. Becky Sauerbrunn as a holding midfielder. Lindsey Horan as a 6, an 8, a 9. And so forth.

Over that time, there has been a constant barrage of criticism, much of it fair. It has often seemed like her primary motivation has been to pack the lineup with your ‘best’ players, rather than a desire to construct an XI with balance and mutually-supportive strengths. And you can understand the urge. Soccer is a game of skill, and the very best players will always be the most skillful ones. To some extent, you want to get as many of those players on the pitch as possible. But soccer is also a game of strength, athleticism, aggression, and insight. Not every player can excel at everything. A good team needs players who will work together to lift each other up. And that means that sometimes a specialist is more valuable than a superstar.

So there is good reason to approach every attempt to shift a player into a new position with a healthy dose of skepticism. 

 

From center mid to center back

Consider two players that have recently transitioned from the central midfield to center back. In 2015, Yael Averbuch made the shift for FC Kansas City, a move inspired largely by roster shortages related to the World Cup. But it wasn’t purely an act of desperation. Averbuch is a smart player, tall, and physical. There was some reason to think that she’d be able to handle the demands of the position. And there was also some hope that the qualities which made her a standout midfielder wouldn’t be wasted in the role. And that’s more or less what we’ve seen. There was a learning curve, but the move has to be considered a success.

Then there’s the case of Allie Long, a stalwart in the Portland midfield over the years, who was shifted to the backline by Ellis last fall in her experiments with a back three. Superficially, the two cases are somewhat similar. Long has also had success in a holding midfield role, is good in the air, and Ellis believed that her strength in distribution would make her ideal for the ‘libero’ role. However, it quickly became apparent that Long was quite limited defensively, not just in physical ability but also in her positioning and vision, and wasn’t really able to serve as the ‘quarterback’ that Ellis had hoped she might be. Moreover, it also became clear that Ellis’s entire vision for the back three was undercooked (to put it gently), with no real sense of how this formation would solve any of the team’s actual problems. Ultimately, the Ellis back three experiment seems to have been the ne plus ultra of her efforts to jam as many ‘skill’ players onto the pitch as possible, rather than reflecting a sustained effort to organize a balanced team.

So these are two cases, with some similarities, but very different results. And that’s partly just the nature of experiments. Some work, some don’t. Look around the NWSL and you’ll see plenty more examples. Kristen Edmonds has done well after being shifted to fullback, while players like Midge Purce, Jamia Fields, and Rachel Daly have been far less successful there. Amber Brooks has been a solid center back. Christina Gibbons has looked excellent after moving into the central midfield. And so forth.

Some moves seem doomed right from the start. And some are so obvious that you wonder why the shift didn’t happen years ago. But quite often you just need to play it out and see. But even in those cases, it’s not like this is completely random. Some moves are more likely to work than others, and there are some principles that help explain the differences. 

First: positions are real, and they require different strengths. To some extent, this is so obvious that it hardly bears saying. Defenders need to be better at defending. They don’t need to be as good on the ball. Pace is good everywhere, but it’s less critical in the central defense and more important on the wings. Skill at possession in tight quarters is good everywhere, but far more important in the central midfield and in the attack. No matter how good a player is, if you’re asking them to work a shift that requires skills they don’t have, they’re going to struggle. That’s not rocket science.

However, the second principle goes the other direction: positions are a lot more flexible than we sometimes think. Pace is critical for fullbacks, except when it isn’t. The modern attacking fullback is all about running, but it doesn’t have to be that way. If you’re willing to restructure your offense, you can get away with four lumbering center backs on your backline. A target forward should be good in the air, but not every forward is a target forward. You can succeed with a lone striker who is five-foot-nothing if you emphasize possession and silky through-balls and deemphasize long balls and crosses into the box. So long as you have a specific objective in mind—and aren’t just trying to jam a square peg into a round hole—using a ‘non-traditional’ player in a role can be quite successful.

Just as one example: there are few things more obvious than the idea that left-footed players should play on the left. But just look at how successful many teams have been in recent years with inverted wingers. All it takes is a slight shift in expectations for the job, and you can extract a great deal of value.

Third, communication is crucial. Most players have a ton of soccer IQ. It’s very hard to succeed in any position at the top levels without it. And given time, they’ll probably pick up the basic skills for a new position. But it won’t be seamless. You see this all the time with players who have grown up in ‘skill’ positions, who are used to taking risks and like to look for the next pass, and then get shifted back into defensive roles. They often get caught in possession when they could have simply cleared the ball into the stands; they attempt risky tackles without cover; they make dangerous passes across the face of goal. Coaching can’t fix those problems immediately—old instincts die hard, after all—but good communication about responsibilities will certainly help manage the danger.

Fourth, and finally, soccer isn’t just about skill … but skill is really important. And the same goes for athleticism. As I noted above, the impulse to simply jam as many skillful players onto the pitch is a bad one, and when that is your overriding impulse, you’re going to get unbalanced and unworkable teams. That said, while every position does have its own unique demands and requirements, there are still some universals. Pace plays anywhere. Skill on the ball plays anywhere. Field vision plays anywhere. And the simple reality is that the best players in the game play in the skill positions. After all, virtually everyone who makes it to the professional level used to be a forward. Players tend to shift down the defensive spectrum as they advance through the ranks. When the pond gets bigger and the number of roles decline, only the very best stay in the attacking spots. Those forward positions are the ones where individual skill matters most, while defense is more of a team endeavor and therefore depends less heavily on the singular talents of one superstar.

There are, of course, plenty of exceptions to the rule. And none of this is meant to minimize the specific demands of other positions. And not every player can manage the transition. Some of the best attackers in the world would be mediocre defenders. But as a general practice, you’re likely to find more success moving a player down the defensive spectrum than the other way around.

 

Sofia Huerta: fullback?

All of which brings me to the recent news out of the USWNT camp: that Ellis has been experimenting with Sofia Huerta in a fullback role.

This announcement provoked the usual consternation and outrage (including some from yours truly). And on its face, it does feel a little absurd. Huerta has found a lot of success as an attacker for Chicago but has shown little evidence of any special defensive strengths. Is the US so short on actual right backs that they’re going to try to forcibly convert a forward?

But there really is a coherent logic to the idea. The simple fact is that the US is stacked up top. Huerta is an excellent player, and almost any nation in the world would be desperate to have her. But she might well be a dozen slots deep in the depth chart for the US. It’s certainly not impossible to imagine her playing herself onto the team in that role, but it’s probably not the most likely scenario.

Meanwhile, when it comes to right back, the US provisions are far more limited. If the World Cup started this fall, Kelley O’Hara would probably be the first choice starter. But, of course, O’Hara herself isn’t really a ‘fullback’ by nature. Taylor Smith showed nicely in the Tournament of Nations, but still has a lot to prove, while Ali Krieger still has plenty in the tank but doesn’t seem to figure prominently in Ellis’s future plans. After that, there are a few names that pop up: Erica Skroski, Arin Gilliland, etc. All of whom are good players, and certainly wouldn’t be a disaster in the role. But these are not the sort of world-beaters that the US can deploy at most other positions.

The Gilliland comparison is particularly useful here since she and Huerta share the same club team. And why would you call in a Chicago forward rather than calling in the actual Chicago right back? But this gets back to the fourth principle listed above. Chicago uses Huerta as an attacker because they need her there. But the USWNT, stocked with players like Mallory Pugh, Crystal Dunn, Alex Morgan, Christen Press, and the like, doesn’t need Huerta anywhere.

Now, it’s quite possible that Huerta won’t translate well to a defensive role. And it’s also possible that we’ll never hear anything about this particular move again. But that wouldn’t prove it was a terrible idea per se. The US doesn’t lose much by testing out the waters, and if Huerta did take to the role well, there’s some real room for gain.

With all that in mind, I actually suggested precisely this move on an episode of the 123rd Minute podcast back in June. I didn’t specifically name Huerta (I was actually thinking of Shea Groom at the time), but the concept is the same.

Square pegs don’t fit well into round holes, it’s true. But soccer players aren’t pegs. They are flexible, adaptable human beings. And we simply have too many examples of players shifting into new (occasionally unconventional) roles and flourishing to reject this sort of thing out of hand. In the end, these sorts of moves need to be assessed based on individual ability and contextual need, not prejudged based on a fixed view of the right way to build a team.

Route Two Soccer – Sky Blue and Seattle play the craziest game of the year

Posted on by RJ Allen

Photo by MikeRussellFoto, find more @mikerussellfoto

This weekend, Seattle and Sky Blue played one of the craziest games in the history of the league.

I was lucky enough to see it in person, from high above the Memorial Stadium pitch, perched with the seagulls. And when I arrived, my plan was to write a normal tactical column.

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Sky Blue had announced a three-back setup, and I was curious to see if that stuck. Would this be their normal 3.5/4.5 approach that they have used before, with O’Hara ranging all up and down the right side? Would it be a true back three? Something else?

And for the first half, that column still made sense. And we will be turning to that tactical conversation in a moment. But ultimately, it felt pointless to fixate in too much detail on the particularities of positional arrangement, when the true story of the game was its emotional arc and the absolute chaos that ensued in that half-hour of madness. So before talking O’Hara and Sky Blue’s hybrid system, we should take a moment to think about momentum.

The power of momentum

In the space of just thirty minutes in the second half, seven goals were scored. By the 60th minute, Seattle was off to the races, with a 4-0 lead and no end in sight. And yet, even then, things didn’t feel secure.

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Seattle’s coach, Laura Harvey, commented post game that she still felt nervous, knowing how explosive this Sky Blue team is, knowing how easily the momentum could shift. And that worry was prescient. Because in the 60th minute, Merritt Mathias conceded a penalty on a pointless foul right at the edge of the box (or possibly, even, just outside the box). Kelley O’Hara stepped up to convert, and the whole game turned on a dime.

Both Harvey and Christy Holly, the Sky Blue coach, called attention to this change in the tide, though neither seemed to think that it resulted from any cataclysmic shift in the style of play. So there is a lot to unpack here. Did the game open up during this period? Did the teams change their game plans? What, exactly, happened here?

The simplest answer is that the game overtook the players. Adrenaline rushed, the pace of play quickened, the blood began pounding, and the relentless drive to score took over. Meanwhile, the defensive structure became frayed, passes started to go askew, lines broke down.

And there’s a lot of truth to that. As I said above, trying to analyze this game from a tactical perspective feels a bit beside the point. At the same time, the basic structure of the game didn’t change all that much.

Sky Blue made some substitutions and slightly re-arranged their shape, dropping Killion into the back line, bringing on some more wide attackers, and giving O’Hara even more freedom to wander at will. But more than anything, what changed was the sense of belief.

The defining characteristic of the New Jersey side this year has been their deep faith. No matter what, they believe that the game remains winnable. They don’t stop working; they fight and scrabble and push. Meanwhile, Seattle seems to be a team that blows a bit more with the wind. When things are going well, they look great. But when the high begins to wear off, they look discombobulated.

You saw some of this even in their two blowouts earlier in the season (against Houston and Washington). In both of those games they were rampant for long periods, but once the game was beyond reach, they lost the plot. Neither Houston nor Washington had enough time to make a game of it, but the trouble signs were there nonetheless.

This time, though, they were playing Sky Blue, and there was still half an hour left. That turned out to be more than enough time for the lack of attention and sloppiness to completely change the course of the game. Once the momentum turned, their gyroscope was unbalanced and all hell broke loose.

What on earth is the Seattle defense doing here?

Now, to be clear, it’s not that Seattle looked terrible for the entire period. It’s just that they seemed to switch off in key moments. A Sky Blue team that had been pressing for chances all game, and making a good show of it, suddenly found that extra bit of space that they needed. And they capitalized.

In the end, the game had four distinct phases. In the first half, things were fairly even, with both sides playing the game they expected to play. The first 15 minutes of the second half featured a rampant Seattle time, full of confidence, creating opportunities and finishing their chances. Then, things turned and the next 15 minutes put Seattle on the back heel, with a Sky Blue team that seemed absolutely certain they were en route to a famous victory.

Then, to Seattle’s credit, once the lead was gone, they seemed to right the ship and set out to find the ultimate winner. They had been flailing while trying to hold onto a lead that slipped through their fingers like sand. But seemingly, the actual realization that the lead was gone allowed them to reset their approach, and return to playing their game.

That’s notable, and something that Seattle can certainly take from the game. But they certainly must also be worrying about the lack of attention and structure that allowed things to go off the rails so quickly.

3-5-2? 4-4-2? How about a 4-5-3?

As noted, Sky Blue announced their setup as a back three. And at times, they did play that way. But at other times, they were quite clearly in a standard 4-4-2. So what was it?

The key here is O’Hara, who plays as something of a hybrid. In attack, she presses very high, looking for all the world like an attacking wingback. When she does, the other three defenders spread out to split the field into thirds. And when Seattle broke in transition, they were breaking against a back three.

But when Sky Blue has time to reset their defense, O’Hara drops back and the other members of the backline settle back into a back four.

This isn’t a new setup by any means, though it was arguably more pronounced this week than it has been before. That largely seems to have been due to the limitations of personnel. Clearly concerned about the Seattle attack, Coach Holly chose to use Nikki Stanton as the left back/left CB, and asked her to stay home.

Ultimately, the terminology here doesn’t matter as much as the actual style of play. You can say that it’s a 4-4-2 with one attacking fullback and one defensive fullback. Or you can say it’s a fluid blend of two approaches.

From my perspective, it’s almost tempting to call it a 4-5-3 since, when working well, they manage to get all the value of O’Hara the fullback combined with all the value of O’Hara the winger.

It certainly asks a tremendous amount of her, and her energy in this position is a huge part of what allowed Sky Blue back into the game. It’s a huge advantage, and O’Hara’s attacking chops have been deadly in each of the past three big comeback games for Sky Blue.

At the same time, there are risks to this approach. Managing a back three can be difficult, particularly in transition against a fast team. And Seattle’s fluid attacking corps is particularly tough to handle, as I wrote about last week. A back three is usually well suited to handling a traditional frontline with two forwards but can run into problems when the opposition can rapidly switch between one and three strikers.

We saw some evidence of those difficulties in this game, particularly with Stanton on the left. When they were playing in a back three, she tended to push too narrow at times, leaving acres of space for Seattle’s right side attackers to move through. She also had some difficulty tracking the complicated movements of Naho Kawasumi (a difficult task for anyone, but particularly for a converted midfielder playing in a fluid system).

However, on the whole, the system worked successfully. It played somewhat defensively in most cases, with its main effect compared to a normal 4-4-2 being to put all of the attacking responsibilities on the shoulders of one attacking fullback. That was a useful tradeoff, on the whole, because the one attacking fullback was O’Hara, and she made the most of those chances.

Conclusion

As I noted at the start, it’s hard to draw too many conclusions from such a singular and strange game. But even though Seattle came away with the three points, it’s probably Sky Blue who can take the more positive lessons. Their ability to fight back under extreme conditions was proven once more. The team spirit was further clarified. And the usefulness of their overall team structure was confirmed.

Going forward, they will need to clamp down on the defensive profligacy earlier in matches. They are spending a huge amount of energy—both physical and emotional—on these rousing comebacks, and that could be a real problem as the dog days of summer set in. In the end, that may consign them to a strong mid-table finish rather than the playoffs that they have been hoping for.

But there is one thing that we can now state with absolute confidence: writing off this Sky Blue team even one second before they are mathematically eliminated would be a huge mistake.

Route Two Soccer – Which Seattle is the Real Seattle

Posted on by RJ Allen

Which Seattle is the real Seattle? The one that destroyed Houston and Washington? The one that was devastated by Boston early in the season? The one that ran roughshod over Portland a couple weeks ago? Or the one that was manhandled by North Carolina the following week?

The glib answer is to just say ‘all of them,’ and of course that’s true in the broadest sense. But if you’re looking for one game to encapsulate this team in 2017, you wouldn’t go wrong to watch this weekend’s draw with Boston. In it, we saw evidence of just how strong this team can be—the fluid movement, the incisive passing, the wonderful creativity of their front six. And you also got plenty of good examples of where things can often go wrong—the peculiar defensive lapses, the problems handling width, the relative weakness of the backline.

Re-tooling and re-kindling the Seattle Reign style

In 2014 and 2015, the Reign were a force of nature. When they were on (and they were usually on), they were close to unplayable. Their midfield trio of Kim Little, Jess Fishlock, and Keelin Winters was likely the best in the world and provided the engine that kept everything else humming along.

But all good things must pass and so it went with the Reign midfield. By 2017, only Fishlock remained, and coach Laura Harvey was faced with the task of re-organizing her team to meet the abilities and talents of the players on the roster. With mixed results.

It’s clear that Harvey has a preferred style of play: an attacking 4-3-3, with a lot of fluid movement high up the pitch—players interchanging freely, covering tremendous ground, making it exceptionally difficult for defenses to settle. And Seattle has broadly speaking continued to play that way. But Harvey has also shown some flexibility. You’re still most likely to see them playing that 4-3-3, but there have been some exceptions. Notably, Harvey moved to a back three against Portland in an effort to flood the midfield and close down their passing lanes. At other times, she’s deployed a defensively-minded 4-2-3-1 in order to slow games down to a more stately pace.

Against Boston, Seattle mostly stuck to character—spending most of the game in their usual setup—but within that structure they showed that not every 4-3-3 works the same way.

Generally, at least one midfielder will play in a true holding role. That was Keelin Winters in previous years, and this year it’s been Rumi Utsugi—the steady rock who helps stabilize the rest of the squad. But beyond that, there’s a lot of room for innovation. Seattle found great success with Fishlock as the linking player and Little as the attacker, but you don’t need to simply find one-to-one replacements in order to make it work. Which is a good thing, because ‘find another Kim Little’ isn’t a plan with much chance of success.

The importance of fluidity

The key to this setup is the variability of movement among the individual pieces. Megan Rapinoe generally plays in the wide left attacking role—which gives her the space she needs to take on isolated defenders, whip in crosses, and make those slicing attacks that have produced so many goals this year. But she is by no means confined to that role. And on the other side, the same is true of Naho Kawasumi, who theoretically play on the right wing but generally covers close to every inch of the pitch at one time or another.

One particularly devastating switch involves Naho dropping a bit and drifting central, with Rapinoe dancing freely just behind Matthias as the central striker. It’s not a ton of movement on the ground, but it produces a very different attacking structure—basically a 4-4-2 pinched diamond, with Naho playing as a de facto Number 10. That puts the other side in the difficult position of deciding whether to ask the wide defenders to drag inward to follow Naho (leaving the wing exposed), or to give her free access to a pocket of space just above the backline in which she can work her magic.

A great performance from Elston

One of the other key features of Harvey’s 4-3-3s is the importance of goal-scoring midfielders. The classic example, of course, is Kim Little. But even without a player of her incredible quality, the Harvey setup can produce a lot of great chances for midfielders to crash the box and exploit spaces ripped open by the movement of the attackers. And we saw wonderful evidence of that in this game, with Lindsay Elston turning in a marvelous performance. She wasn’t able to find the net, but put herself into dangerous positions constantly, and gave Boston fits all night as they struggled to manage the additional body arriving late and unanticipated.

Elston is hardly a star, but she turned in a POTM performance in this game. And while that’s obviously partially a sign of her own skill and commitment, it’s also a testament to Harvey’s tactical management. One mark of a top coach is their ability to build collaborative systems in which good players are made to look great.

Elston’s performance was particularly impressive given just how many different hats she had to wear at different points. Those deep runs into the box are exceptionally hard for the defense to track—which is what makes them so dangerous—but they can also leave your own midfield quite exposed. You need to be judicious about your movement, and you need good communication to ensure that your run is protected. We expect that level of sophistication and precision from Jess Fishlock, but for Elston to step in so assuredly is a good indication that the whole team is on the same page.

Persistent weaknesses

Still, for all the good work that Harvey has done to adapt her system and integrate new players in the process, there are still major weaknesses in this team. When everything is clicking, and they have the space they need to orchestrate their attacks, they look incredible. But there’s a fairly simple solution: don’t give them that space.

And it doesn’t take an aggressive gegenpress to unsettle them, either. You just need to stay organized and consistently apply pressure on their weaker passers, to break up the rhythm and keep yourself from getting pulled completely out of shape when the ball gets to their more creative players. And Boston generally did this to great effect in this game. It wasn’t a perfect performance by any means, and Seattle certainly had plenty of decent attacks. But in general, they were able to keep Rapinoe and Naho fairly restrained to the sidelines and kept the pressure on them strong when they did get the ball.

They were certainly aided in that project by their own tactical setup—with Angela Salem and Morgan Andrews both playing in holding roles, allowing them to pack that crucial central space into which Seattle hopes to find exploitable openings.

Of course, that choice doesn’t come without costs. By packing the center, Boston had to sacrifice the chance to really come at Seattle with pace on the wings. It’s no surprise, then, that this ended up a tense low-scoring affair. Boston’s setup was designed to limit Seattle’s attacking space, and in order to achieve that result, they were willing to forego an aggressive assault on the Reign’s weakest point.

And it mostly worked. Seattle’s only goal was the product of a defensive miscue from Abby Smith (whose poor clearance only made it as far as Naho’s feet) and a wonder strike, not from any sophisticated build up.

Meanwhile, Boston’s goal helped to clarify that if the Reign make the playoffs this year, it will be primarily because they were able to outscore the opposition, not from any particular defensive solidity. It all started with a corner, which left Seattle out of position. Once the ball was cleared, they tried to reset but didn’t have time. Which meant that Westphal received the ball on the right wing with acres of space—since the ostensible left back (Pickett) was effectively playing right back at the moment. They tried to shift, with Barnes moving out to cover the left and Stott moving into a de facto center back position, but it was all a bit sloppy. So when Westphal’s deliciously weighted ball arced toward the net, three Seattle players formed a neat triangle around the onrushing Adriana Leon, with none of them actually close enough to stop the shot.

This was by no means a catastrophic failure. Stott and McNabb gave Leon just a bit too much space, and Kopmeyer may have waited a hair too long to come out and missed her chance. But it still took a truly superb cross and a clinical finish to find the net.

Which Seattle is the real Seattle?

In the end, Seattle will likely be frustrated to have only managed a point from a home fixture against a struggling Boston side. But they’ll also likely savor any result against a team that beat them so comprehensively earlier in the season.

And beyond the result, the same sort of gray picture emerges—with pluses and minuses in equal doses. Seattle played the style they wanted to play and mostly played it well. That’s a good sign, especially given the absence of Fishlock. At the same time, for all the decent play and fluid movement, they still found it pretty difficult to actually penetrate the Boston defense. And that is worrisome because Boston’s setup was hardly a complicated one, and their personnel is hardly the most daunting in the league.

Ultimately, if Seattle hope to make the playoffs and make a run for the title, they need to keep adding tools to the arsenal. Going into the season, Seattle’s two biggest red flags were probably depth and lack of flexibility. On both of those fronts, this game provided some clear evidence of consolidation. But it remains to be seen how much more room there is there for progress.

Route Two Soccer – Gibbons Brings Creativity to the FCKC Midfield

Posted on by RJ Allen

2017 has been a good year for defenders moving into the midfield. First, was Julie Ertz with Chicago. And this weekend, we got another fascinating (and potentially transformative) example, with Christina Gibbons stepping out from her traditional left back role to patrol the central midfield for KCKC.

It’s impossible to discuss any part of KC’s season this year, without mentioning Amy Rodriguez, whose injury in the first game of the season threw everything into chaos. It’s hard to think of many players in the league that would have been more essential to the team’s plan going into the year. Without Rodriguez, they lack a true linking player in their attack. Despite immense talent (the KC frontline looked to be one of the most dangerous in the league at the start of the season), they’ve struggled mightily to find the creativity that can help unleash the full talents of Sydney Leroux and Shea Groom—who both work better as slashing attackers rather than as central strikers. Combined with the absence of Mandy Laddish, it’s been tough times down the middle for Kansas City this year.

Now, they are hardly without resources, and Vlatko has managed to put together a solid Plan B: a system with two holding midfielders at the base of a compact 4-2-3-1. The goal is to put a firm hand on the throttle, keep control of the game, and prevent the other side from getting the chance to come at you. But it’s hard to spend the whole year in a defensive crouch, and to his credit, he’s continued to tinker at the edges—looking for a way to get his talented attacking players better looks at goal.

A bit of serendipity brings Gibbons to central midfield

And this weekend, against Sky Blue, a small bit of serendipity seems to have helped that process along. With Lo’eau LaBonta suspended for the match, Andonovski asked Christina Gibbons, his rookie left back, to try her luck in the midfield.

On paper the move makes a lot of sense. Gibbons is very skilled on the ball, an excellent passer, with good field vision, and good pace. And while she still has work to do with her defensive positioning and tackling, she’s a good defender one-on-one. All of those skills suggests an able box-to-box midfielder, something KC has really been lacking this year.

Still, it was a gamble since, despite having moved around a lot—as young and talented players are often asked to do—central midfield is not one of the positions she’s spent much time in. And with only a few days to practice, there wasn’t much time for direction. As Gibbons described her training: “He gave me a few directions going into the weekend, but mostly just said ‘I want you to feel it out yourself and make adjustments as you go.’” She had a few days to try and get comfortable working with Desiree Scott to manage her new responsibilities covering arguably the most important area on the pitch.

So this was by no means a sure thing. But this sort of move—slightly outside the box, based on an expectation that his players all understand the team’s overall approach and setup, grounded in a deep sense of trust between player and coach—that’s been the hallmark of Vlatko’s tenure at Kansas City. After all, this is a coach who looked at Yael Averbuch and saw one of the league’s best center backs.

And once again, Andonovski’s vision paid off. It seemed to take Gibbons five or ten minutes to really get comfortable in the role, but before long, things started to click.

A fluid 4-4-2

One crucial advantage to playing Gibbons is the additional flexibility she brings to the role. Desiree Scott, Becca Moros, and even Lo’eau LaBonta (who has shown some flair this year) are all excellent players, but they’re generally best utilized as true holding players. They can get forward in the attack, but that’s not their primary role. With Gibbons, KC instantly becomes more expansive.

And in an effort to take advantage of that opportunity, the formation needed some tweaking as well, moving away from the 4-2-3-1 that looked to pack the midfield and seize control of the game and toward a 4-4-2 that played more expansively. And which played at a much higher tempo.

On defense, they generally worked with two banks of four in the defense and midfield, with Gibbons and Scott spread out to cover the midfield horizontally. On offense, however, Gibbons had a lot more freedom to move forward aggressively into an attacking midfield role. In fact, at times, the 4-4-2 actually split apart a bit, playing more like a 4-1-4-1, with Scott staying back as the only true holding player, and with Gibbons and Groom almost playing side to side as a pair of inside forwards.

Closer to a 4-1-4-1

And this raises another key point. This setup is notable for the flexibility it provides for the strikers. Groom, in particular, seemed to relish the opportunity. It gives her the chance to come back, pick the ball up high, and take people on going forward. There are few in the league who can match her at full flight with the ball at her feet, but playing out wide for most of the year, she’s had fewer chances to exploit defenses this way. In this 4-4-2, she had that freedom, and it made a huge difference.

A scary sight for opposing defenses

For almost the first time since that opening match, Kansas City looked like the dominant attacking force a lot of us expected them to be. And while Gibbons is still a long way from being ‘the next Amy Rodriguez,’ it was still notable just how much this setup seemed to revolve around her creativity and passing acumen on the center stage. You can see clear evidence of this in the first KC goal, of course, but there are plenty of other examples. The thing that immediately strikes you when watching Gibbons is how quickly the ball moves. One-touch passes, quick touches to produce an angle, and then moving the ball along. I’d love to see the Opta stats on this one, because at least subjectively, it didn’t seem like she necessarily had all that many touches. But when she did get involved, things tended to happen.

A (much) more open game

For all the benefits of this approach, there are of course consequences as well. If their previous setup was focused on managing and limiting the other side, this more fluid attacking approach depends on sacrificing some defensive stability. When the game is more open, there are more chances for both sides to step into that space. And if the KC attack is generally going to play higher up the pitch, it requires the whole team to do more pressing in order to close down counterattacks before they can get going. This is an approach that emphasizes disruption over control.

But (at least in the first half), this gamble more than paid off. Sky Blue spent most of the half looking a bit overwhelmed, and were often at a loss to make much of their possessions—turning the ball over as soon as they won it on quite a few occasions. In particular, neither of their central duo, Killion and Rodriguez, seemed to be particularly crisp. Amidst the harrying from Kansas City, they lost the ball far more often than they would have liked.

All of which meant that, very quickly, Sky Blue seemed to settle back into a fairly deep defensive position. They looked to pack their defensive third with bodies, giving Kansas City quite a bit of room on the ball in the midfield and out wide. In general, this probably is the best way for Sky Blue to play. Their defenders are quite good at soaking up pressure and closing down attacks once they’re in the danger zone, but far less good at managing wide-open defensive space. And for the first half hour, it did mostly work, with KC settling for some tame shots from distance and some not particularly well-measured crosses.

But Kansas City was pressing hard, and eventually the dam burst, with Groom moving wide and sending in a cross that Sheridan could only punch away. A delightful bit of insight and creativity from Gibbons and a solid strike from Bowen and KC found the back of the net.

The pressure kept up for the rest of the half, with Gibbons growing into the game, and defensive harassment giving her plenty of chances to shine. Eventually, that’s what produced the second goal, with Killion losing the ball on a tough challenge from Scott. A quick KC counterattack unfolded, with the Sky Blue defenders dropping away to try and set up their bunker. But Gibbons found the ball at her feet, with space to run, and simply went for goal.

A game of two halves

As the cliché goes, this one was very much a game of two halves, with Kansas City rampant for the first half and Sky Blue even more dominant for the second. A huge part of that is Shea Groom’s red card. For the second week in a row, Kansas City found themselves down a player for the second half. But where Houston was content to settle deep and let KC have the ball, Sky Blue was chasing the game and were absolutely relentless in doing so.

And here is where the serendipity turned around a bit. LaBonta’s suspension came with a big silver lining—by inspiring Gibbons’ move to the midfield, it breathed some new life into their attack—but in the second half her absence was felt quite keenly. As set up, KC was depending on aggressive pressing to close down the Sky Blue attack—and to shut off the supply to Sam Kerr at the top. But down a player, this simply wasn’t a viable approach. And with LaBonta unavailable, they simply didn’t have the sort of solid defensive substitute that was desperately needed to shore up the backline.

Sky Blue, who had been so frustrated for the whole first half, were suddenly given space all across the field, and 45 minutes worth of chances to target Sam Kerr in the box. The Kansas City defense managed to hold out for a long time, but eventually, exhaustion seemed to set in and Kerr was able to score a dazzling hat trick to clinch the game.

Going forward

All in all, that made for a bitter defeat, but one from which KC should be able to take a lot of solace. In a year of difficult results, they’re still only a couple of victories away from the playoff race and are now possessing some additional tactical options.

It will certainly be interesting to see how Gibbons is used going forward. In the short term, it’s hard to imagine Vlatko moving her immediately back to left back, but over the long term that may still be her best role. Especially once Laddish returns and can fill that crucial linking role.

And over the even longer term, this is a question that will be interesting to folks above and beyond just Kansas City fans, since Gibbons certainly is in the mix of young and talented players with a chance to break into the full national team. Left back is an extremely deep position right now, but if she has the flexibility to play elsewhere at a high level, that might make a difference in her chances of joining the squad.

Route Two Soccer – Is Houston’s Turnaround For Real?

Posted on by RJ Allen

Houston made two big changes over the last month—parting ways with Randy Waldrum, and welcoming Carli Lloyd back into the fold. Since then, their fortunes have turned significantly, capped off by a 2-1 victory away to FC Kansas City this weekend.

It would be an overstatement to say that these two changes are the reasons for Houston’s improved results. As they say, correlation is not causation, and the game is far too complex for any single cause to dominate. That said, the turnaround has been significant, and not just in the results. While Houston still don’t really look like a playoff contender, their performance against KC was their most complete and coherent on the season.

So it’s worth taking some time to dig into the shift, to evaluate the changes and assess whether the ‘real’ Dash are the team who lost six in a row, the team that just took seven points from three games, or (most likely) somewhere in between.

Lloyd’s Return

Carli Lloyd is one of the most fascinating players in American soccer, even if you’re only focused on her performances on the pitch. But potentially even more interesting are the collective responses to those performances. In particular, it’s hard to think of a player who moves so quickly between overrated and underrated.

And that’s because Lloyd is a player of extremes. She is famously aggressive—in her style of play, in her commitment to challenges, and in her training. And that aggression can produce some stunning results, particularly when the stakes are high. It’s no coincidence that many of her goals are game-winners, or that her best performances always seem to come in the most critical games. In many ways, her intensity seems to feed off the big moments. She moves all around the pitch, winning balls, firing off passes, willing the rest of the team to drive forward and press their advantage. And when she’s on her game, she truly is world class.

At the same time, for a great player, Lloyd can also look shockingly ineffective for long stretches. That’s always been true but is even more apparent as she’s grown older and her engine has cooled a bit. When things aren’t clicking, she struggles to find the ball, and when she does get it is more than likely to overcommit to a pass or dribble and give it right back. She can get frustrated and lash out, or she can keep pressing harder to make something out of limited opportunities and short-circuit any chance of a useful buildup.

These two versions of Lloyd generate wildly different outcomes but carry the same basic DNA. Her tendency to drift is a huge advantage when she’s playing well, making her very difficult to mark, and giving her endless opportunities to exploit the space between the defense and midfield. When she’s playing poorly, the tables are turned. The team continues to circle around her but with the catalyst no longer functioning, play tends to sputter and die out.

These are real weaknesses, and they are a big part of why the US National Team needs to start planning seriously for the post-Carli world. But it would be a huge mistake to see Lloyd as nothing but those weaknesses. Because even when she is playing poorly, there will still be a few moments in a game when the good version will pop up and make a contribution that virtually no one else in the world could manage. For the USWNT, that sort of gamble is probably a poor bet. But for a team like Houston—particularly in the middle of their long losing streak—there are very few players in the world that you’d rather see returning to the fold.

Part of that is down to the mental and emotional side of the game. When you’re down and out, it can be hard to retain the confidence necessary to play well. That can lead to timid play, a recipe for disaster. But one of Lloyd’s key defining qualities is her indomitable will. She will take all those doubts and channel them into pure aggression. With her on the pitch, there’s no fear. There may be some recklessness, but there is no fear. And that’s incredibly important for a team trying to right the ship.

But there’s also a crucial tactical element of Lloyd’ return that’s worth addressing.

An extremely modest 4-4-2

Early in the season, I wrote about Lloyd’s return and said that it was “unclear whether Lloyd actually fits into the system that Houston needs to play. She’s certainly not well suited for a lethal counterattacking unit built on pace and quick one-touch passing to slice through a defense in transition.”

And that remains basically true. But it also depends a lot on your point of reference. At the time, the Dash had leapt out of the starting gate and were contemplating a strong push for the playoffs. And in that context, Lloyd’s noted weaknesses could easily have been disruptive. But the Dash today are facing far worse conditions, and the gamble of Lloyd is looking like a much better bet.

After all, the problem with Lloyd is that she tends to dominate the offensive framework. Everything either goes through her or around her, which is great when she’s playing well but a recipe for stagnation when she drifts out of the game. But the Dash were already stagnating offensively, so there wasn’t much danger of making things worse. And if Lloyd can be unreliable, you’re still guaranteed some great moments.

Eight seconds later, Houston scored.

And this week, that’s precisely what they got. Watch their two goals, and you’ll note that in both cases there was essentially no buildup at all. For the first goal, Lloyd claimed the ball fairly deep in the defensive half, dribbled past a couple defenders, and sent a long through-ball right to Daly, who then scored. The ball spent about eight seconds in the attacking half before being slotted home. And the second goal was even more abrupt. It came from a free kick in the Houston half (the one resulting from LaBonta’s second yellow card), and it took all of five seconds from Amber Brooks kicking the ball to Nichelle Prince scoring.

The first goal was vintage Lloyd, making one transcendent pass that produced a goal, in a game when Houston was having tremendous difficulty generating much of anything.

Now, it’s not that the Dash had no useful possession in the game. They did manage a few decent chances developed through a more measured build up, and managed to keep the ball reasonably well (at least by their standards). But it wasn’t producing much. And it wasn’t the heart of their approach.

Where is the width?

One other crucial feature of this 4-4-2 is just how narrowly it was pinched. In the past, when using Lloyd in this role, Houston has tried to spread the forward out wide, giving her more room to roam in the middle and allowing attacking runs in from the wings. But there wasn’t much of that here. Nor were the midfielders going to the wings.

The width, therefore, was supplied almost exclusively by the fullbacks, and mostly from Poliana on the right. Particularly in the first half, the vast majority of Houston’s attacks came down the right, pitting two young attacking fullbacks against each other, with Gibbons playing that role for KC.

In contrast to Waldrum—who benched Poliana this year, out of apparent frustration at her poor defending—Morales appears to be looking to take advantage of her strength in the attack and is willing to tolerate her defensive limitations. There are dangers in this, and Poliana’s aggressive attacking instincts can often leave her woefully out of position. But there are also clear advantages, and it seems like Morales is willing to gamble. Over the long haul, there may be games where that decision ends up being costly. But given Poliana’s clear attacking abilities, and given the difficulties generating width anywhere else, it’s a choice that makes a lot of sense.

Defensive stability

Another key change for Houston is in the central defensive pairing, where Morales has chosen to use Amber Brooks. With the return of Janine Van Wyk, the Dash have had a stable center back combination for the first time all season.

And that’s important. Defensive organization is difficult, and doubly so when the personnel changes every week. With that in mind, Morales seems to be working hard to make sure the best doesn’t become the enemy of the good. Yes, there are obvious problems with the Brooks/Van Wyk pairing. Namely: both are slow, neither are good defenders on the move, and neither have a particularly keen sense of how to manage defensive space.

But the simple fact is that Houston doesn’t have any great defenders. They all have flaws, so while you might want to bench a player after a bad game, there’s not really any light at the end of that tunnel. In the end, better to simply pick a combination and let them develop together. And while I would never have chosen Brooks for the job, it’s worth noting that she’s taken quite well to the position change. And that move—from holding midfield to the backline—is certainly not unprecedented.

It’s hard to say whether this will ultimately turn out to be a long-term success. But as a stopgap measure, the decision to move Brooks back is looking smart.

LaBonta’s red card: Houston avoids taking the bait

Perhaps the most important moment of the game was Lo’eau LaBonta’s red card. Not only did it reduce KC to 10 players, it also produced the free kick on which Houston seized the lead, and fundamentally changed the structure of the game from that point onward.

Now, it’s never a bad thing to gain a player advantage. But in Houston’s case there was a real danger here. Their game plan was pretty straightforward. Defend deep, protect that fragile backline, and stay compact. And generally speaking, they executed this plan well.

But once they were up a player, there’s a real chance that Houston might have shifted gears, grown more comfortable in possession, opened up their play, and allowed themselves to get drawn forward. And even down a player, Leroux and (especially) Groom can be absolutely lethal with the ball at their feet and space to move into.

But Houston effectively just refused to take the bait. Which led to a peculiar final third of the match, in which the team up a player basically conceded possession and drew back into a defensive shell. It wasn’t especially courageous, certainly wasn’t pretty, and still produced a couple iffy moments. But it worked.

Knowing your limits and playing to your strengths

As I noted at the start, it’s hard to tell a clear causal story here. It’s possible that this is just a normal regression to the mean, with Houston simply returning to the form that they showed last year: a mid-table team, who can win ugly enough to stay off the bottom but can’t do much more.

But ‘regression to the mean’ is sometimes too pat an explanation.

Yes, the underlying talent was still there. And sure, they could easily have played like this back when Waldrum was coach and Lloyd was back in England. But they didn’t. For the first two months, this looked like a team where everyone had read different playbooks. Now, they’re playing with resolve and commitment. And while there are still plenty of mistakes and scary moments, at least they all seem to be moving in the same direction.

For the first time, this looks like a team that understands its major weaknesses, and are at least trying to do something about them.

That may sound like damning with faint praise, but it’s a real success story. It is hard to stick to a plan over the course of a whole game, particularly when events turn in your favor. And it’s a testament to Houston’s resolve that they were able to do it.

The real question now, though, is whether they can stick with the plan going forward. It’s easy to buy into an approach when it’s working. What happens when they play a couple games in a row where Lloyd isn’t able to conjure any goals, and where they’re just forced to sit back and take 90 minutes of relentless pressure?

Only time will tell. But looking backward, there’s some pretty overwhelming evidence that Lloyd, at least, makes a huge difference. Here are Houston’s points per game over the last two years, both with her and without:

  • With Lloyd: 1.9 points per game (easily a playoff pace)
  • Without Lloyd: 0.7 points per game (marginally better than Boston 2016)

Clearly, some of that must be coincidental. But that is an enormous gap, and it would be pretty difficult to argue that she hasn’t made a big difference.

Route Two Soccer – Let’s Talk About Tori Huster

Posted on by RJ Allen

In this game, we focus a great deal on the players who do things. And for good reason. Most of the time, the action is…well, where the action is. But there is always a lot more going on than just what’s happening near the ball. And there is no player in the league who better illustrates this point than Tori Huster.

Watching her reminds me of Vicente del Bosque’s praise of Sergio Busquets: “If you watch the whole game, you won’t see Busquets—but watch Busquets, and you will see the whole game.” Huster is a similar player. Watch her and you’ll see the whole game.

Washington 1 – 0 Portland

After spending six weeks out with a quad strain, Huster made her return this week. It was a big ask—coming straight back in for a full 90 without a chance to build back up her match fitness and form. And against Portland, no less. But Huster looked as comfortable as if she’d never left, helping to lock down many of the improvements that the team had made in her absence.

Generally, teams have found success against the Thorns this year primarily through a high pressing game: harass them high up the pitch, break up their rhythm, force them into dumb mistakes, and generally just keep them from playing their game. North Carolina provided the template early in the season, but others have found some good results using the same techniques, including Sky Blue last week.

The problem with that approach is that it needs a lot of pace. In order to keep the channels clogged as you press high, you need to play a high line and do a lot of running. Even more, to play this way you desperately need a midfield who can hold possession under pressure, to capitalize on turnovers and spring attacks in transition.

And while Washington has certainly looked better recently, those improvements haven’t solved those fundamental weaknesses in the team. Unlike their 2016 iteration, which really did have the personnel and speed to play that way, the 2017 squad can’t afford to fully commit to a full field press.

Now, that may change over the coming weeks. After all, the Spirit should soon be getting Mallory Pugh back from injury, Estefania Banini back from Europe, not to mention an increasingly fit Caprice Dydasco (who made a big difference pushing higher up the pitch in her half-hour this week). Combine those additions with some increasingly confident and active players like Francisca Ordega and Meggie Dougherty Howard, and you’ve got the core of a truly solid unit. By the end of the year, the Spirit may well be playing a lot like they were at the end of 2016. But for now, lack of team speed and midfield control will doom them if they try to play too expansively.

High pressing with a low backline: Wait, what?

Their solution is as simple as it is effective: focus your play on the attacking thirds, and don’t worry too much about what’s in between. In effect: keep your defense as deep as possible—to avoid the backline getting turned and their limited pace exposed—while still pushing as high possible in the attacking end.

Your front players should press aggressively and look to quickly close down on the ball high up the pitch. Your defenders, however, should drop off the ball as much as possible. Don’t step up to challenge, and risk getting beat. Just drop, and drop quickly. Keep the other team in front of you and build a wall in front of your goal.

At times, this could be mistaken for ‘bunkering,’ since it involves setting a deep backline and soaking up pressure rather than trying to play through the midfield. But it’s different in the important respect that you’re really only playing with six players behind the ball. The attacking four will drop when necessary, but their focus is upfield, not down. That’s what makes it possible for them to exert effective high pressure, and what keeps them available for good looks on goal.

Now, there are two clear problems with this approach:

First and most obvious: it requires conceding dominance over a (pretty important) part of the field. Games are won and lost in the midfield, and this setup is a recipe for losing a lot of midfield battles. However, there is an important element of expedience here. Because the fact is: given the available personnel, Washington is probably going to get beat in the midfield a lot anyways. So the question is how to structure those defeats. More on that in a moment.

Second, this approach is bad for possession. Creating such a wide gap between the front and back lines makes it difficult to link them together when you do get the ball. It’s a recipe for a lot of long balls over the top and speculative crossing runs, most of which will go astray. This is a real problem since it’s hard to win the game without the ball. But again, this is a matter of facing realities. Even if they wanted to, Washington simply isn’t going to get a ton of joy from keeping the ball on the ground and playing tiki-taka through the middle. So it’s quite reasonable to think about this not in terms of how much possession you get, but rather how useful you’re able to make your limited chances.

Tactical judo: turning your weaknesses into strengths

In both of these cases, the underlying logic owes as much to the martial arts as anything else. Because the key is to use your opponent’s strength against them by carefully managing how that strength can be expressed.

By accepting a disadvantage in the midfield, you draw your opposition out. If they manage to unlock the high pressure, they’ll move quickly through that vacant midfield space, hoping to pounce on the retreating backline. But if you can hold the line, they’ll often find themselves spinning their wheels—far more stretched than they expect. Like the dog who catches the car, you may end up with an attacker who sprang forward anticipating a devastating counter only to find herself 30 yards ahead of any help.

Alternatively, if they do manage to get forward in numbers, that creates the space that you want for your counterattacks. Stay resolute, break up play, and then quickly turn and look for the long crossing ball that will give your forwards room to run.

Everything depends on the holding midfielders

Making this setup work is no simple thing. It requires a lot of organization and needs defenders who are solid with their back to goal. It needs a keeper who is comfortable dealing with shots from distance, and who can handle crosses well. And it needs attackers who can thrive without much support from the midfield—players who can make their own chances, by beating a couple defenders, or by racing down low-percentages balls and making something out of nothing. But more than anything else: you need dependable holding midfielders. And that’s where Tori Huster comes in.

Because while there are plenty of great holding midfielders these days, some with more creative attacking flair, some who are better goal scorers, and some who are better tacklers. But I’m not sure there’s anyone in the league who is more dependable. And this weekend’s game was as clear an example as you could ever hope for.

Washington managed only 38% possession and were consistently overrun in the midfield. But for all that, Portland looked fairly toothless all game—only managing three shots on goals. Certainly, some of the blame can be placed on the Thorns themselves, but a lot of credit needs to go to Dougherty Howard and (especially) Huster—the holding midfielders who held the rock on which Portland crashed for most of the evening.

While the high press gave the Thorns some trouble, it was by no means able to coop them up entirely. But every time they broke through and tried to come in numbers, Huster was there—tracking along and slowing their attack, giving the defense time to drop and set before they were overrun, tracking the front runners and closing down passing angles. And once the defense set, Huster and Dougherty Howard were a constantly-moving shield at the top of the 18-yard box, forcing play to go wide, interfering and disrupting.

One of the hardest things about defending well is the discipline it takes to judge when to step and when to drop. And it’s often even harder to assess that quality from afar. We focus on the perfectly executed tackles, the last-ditch efforts that save a goal, the narrow inches between winning the ball and conceding a penalty. But often the most successful defenders are the ones who keep the dangerous play from developing in the first place. By holding their position, they delay the attack long enough for support to arrive. By dropping, they fill the space where the through-ball might have gone. By being patient, they maintain control.

This is an important quality for anyone, but it’s especially important for the holding player in Washington’s setup. Defense is a team problem, and a defense is only as good as its weakest link. But ‘weakest’ isn’t a static concept. Good players don’t just do good things individually; they also help build an infrastructure that helps everyone do better.

When the Spirit have played well this year, it’s been driven by good performances in those central midfield roles–protecting the defense in transition, preserving the ball long enough to launch attacks, marshaling the troops to keep everyone in line. Dougherty Howard has grown into the role and looks a very useful player. Havana Solaun was deputized there with some success but is far better utilized in a more attacking role where her creativity can shine. And Line Sigvardsen Jensen has filled in where necessary. But Huster’s return is a game-changer.

Watch Huster, and you’ll see the whole game

Think about the quote I mentioned at the start: watch the game and you won’t see her; watch her and you’ll see the whole game. That’s because so much of what she’s doing never shows up in plays that go into the box score. She’ll win her share of tackles and make her share of passes, sure, but more than anything she’s a shepherd. Her job is to make sure everything stays on course, not necessarily to do it herself.

And it takes incredible discipline to successfully play this way. You need someone who will run endlessly just to make sure that the passing channels stay clogged. Who can see play in motion and anticipate where someone will need to be. Who can cover for her teammates when they’re dragged out of position. Who can understand the team’s shape as it ebbs and flows and keep everyone working together.

It’s a cliché when talking about a ‘weak’ team who is tough to score against to say “they’re just really well organized,” but we don’t spend nearly enough time thinking about where that organization comes from. Obviously, coaching is immensely important here, but it also takes a lot of work from the players on the pitch to actually execute the plan. And it depends in particular on the field general who can keep everyone marching to the same tune.

That’s Huster.

Watch Washington play with her on the pitch and notice how often she’s pointing—drop into this space, protect that flank, watch your blind side, pass into that channel, and so on. Watch to see how often she’s moving ahead of the play—protecting space that’s not threatened yet, but which is about to be attacked. Watch to see how assiduously she manages breakaway attacks—not looking to make a spectacular (but risky) tackle; trusting that her defense will be able to stifle the attack if she can just give them the time to reset.

But more than anything, watch to see how often the opponent seems strangely quiet on the night—unable to find those penetrating runs, unable to successfully isolate and turn defenders, unable to do much of anything with all the possession that they seem to have.

There are plenty of flashy players in the league, and we rightly give them a lot of credit for the incredible things they can do. But I’m not sure there was any player more crucial to their team’s success this week than Tori Huster. That her contributions were so quiet only makes them that much more impressive.